Energy conservation and renewable power will help stabilize Northwest CO₂ emissions

September 18, 2007

Meeting future demand for electricity in the Northwest with aggressive development of new energy conservation and wind power will help reduce the growth of the region’s contribution of carbon dioxide (CO₂) to the atmosphere from electricity production, according to an analysis by the Council.

The Council released the draft report today for public comment through October 19, 2007.

“This report highlights the challenges facing the region in trying to control CO₂ emissions from the power system,” Council Chair Tom Karier said. “It will be a tremendous challenge just to keep CO₂ emissions at current levels.”

According to the draft report:

• Approximately 85 percent of CO₂ production from power generation in the region comes from existing coal-fired plants, which provide supply about 14 percent of the region’s electricity generating capacity. Achieving reductions of CO₂ production to 2005 or 1990 levels, as some policies have recommended, will require replacing some of these existing coal fired-fired power plants with low CO₂ -emitting resources. The analysis shows how difficult it will be to reduce CO₂ production to 1990 levels. Analysis of a number of scenarios shows, for example, that achieving recently enacted state standards for renewable energy and eliminating all summer spill at Columbia and Snake river dams (this would boost hydropower generation and reduce generation at coal and natural gas plants) would reduce the region’s projected increase in CO₂ production by 2024 by less than half, even when counting the resulting net CO₂ reduction throughout the West.
• Achieving the goals for energy conservation and wind power in the Council’s Fifth Northwest Power Plan will cause CO₂ emissions from electricity production in the Northwest to grow at a rate of less than 1 percent per year through 2024 (the plan, completed in 2004, looks 20 years into the future)
• However, achieving only 70 percent of the conservation goal in the power plan would increase reliance on power from plants that burn natural gas or coal and would add about 6.3 million tons per year of CO₂ to the atmosphere, an amount equal to about 9 percent of annual CO₂ production in the Northwest
• Achieving state renewable energy goals would reduce CO₂ emissions westwide by 2.9 million tons per year
• Breaching the four dams on the lower Snake River would increase CO₂ emissions by 5.4 million tons per year, an amount equal to about 8 percent of current CO₂ production in the Northwest
• Court-ordered summer spills of water at lower Snake and Columbia river dams, which reduce hydropower production, add about 1.8 million tons of CO₂ to the atmosphere, an amount equal to about 3 percent of CO₂ production in the Northwest

The report responds to increasing public interest in the role of greenhouse gases like CO₂ in climate change, the sources of CO2, and how emissions might be controlled. See the draft report for instructions on how to comment.

The Council is an agency of the states of Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington and is directed by the Northwest Power Act of 1980 to prepare a program to protect, mitigate and enhance fish and wildlife of the Columbia River Basin affected by hydropower dams while also assuring the region an adequate, efficient, economical and reliable power supply.

Contacts:

• , Chair, 509-623-4386
• , Information Officer, 503-222-5161